Omar Ortiz was born in 1977 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico where he still lives. Since he was a boy he has been interested in drawing and illustration. He studied for a degree in Graphic Design, where he learned different techniques such as hand drawing, pastels, charcoal, water colors, acrylics and airbrushing.
When he finished college he decided to make a living from painting. In 2002 he attended his first oil paint classes with the artist Carmen Alarcón, who he considers his main teacher. Omar Ortiz currently works with oil painting because he considers it the noblest technique.
“Since I started painting I have always tried to represent things as real as I can. Sometimes I succeed and some others I don´t but it´s a fact that it is very difficult for me to do otherwise.
I enjoy the challenge of reproducing skin tones and it´s nuances under natural light, particularly in bright conditions. I like simplicity in my pieces since I believe that excesses make us more poor rather than rich.”
In Love with form and color.
'I have the satisfactory impression of attending at the beginning of an amazing painting collection'.
With these words still had in 1954 the still unknown writer Gabriel García Márquez presented a promising, the Peruvian-Colombian painter Armando Villegas.
The Mexican painter Omar Ortiz, despite his youth, should be considered an undisputed figure of realistic painting. His beginnings with oil go back to the year 2002 and since then has shown a mastery that raised him among the greats.
He formed technically with painter Carmen Alarcon, although his stylistic and thematic inspiration is closer to hyperrealism academic painters like Chilean Claudio Bravo.
In this exhibition he presents his latest work, which is a pictorial summary of his concerns.
In his work i would highlight four constants:
Beauty is an essence that emanates from each of his paintings. In the female nudes in the classical manner in exquisite proportions, in serene faces and a touch of sensuality. In his still lifes, the ideal of perfection is shown in minute detail, of honest patience, which invites us to reflect in silence on the passage of time.
We enjoyed these oils with the sight, but the sense that really excite us is that of touch. Seeking hands caress, feeling the thin skin of the models, check the quality of the fabrics or take one of the fruits stacked. The brush gets deceiving. Lights and shadows create a corporeal entity. We feel the quiet breathing of the young. Hanging cloths seem out of the picture. The shells are edible ...
No fantasy distracts the viewer's attention. Bodies and objects are presented in simple compositions but not vacuous. Figures are individualized, they do not need a fund for support. They alone are the protagonists at their own merit. The painter has no doubt of its expressive and therefore magnifies them fullscreen.
Color is one of his hallmarks. The target is almost always present and illuminating his work with a thousand shades and transmitting purity and energy. In the series of paintings with hanging fab rics we find variety. Here not only interested in the texture of the object but also in creating attractive color games. When he uses red it´s passionate and brilliant. His yellow and gold are bold and luxurious. The black in his paintings is not the absence of color.
It remains for us to wish him luck.
Alfredo García Gómez-Álvarez
Algargosarte
Omar Ortiz uses human body as main element in his work, the relationship between it and its manifestation is not only natural, but inevitable. The viewer is facing characters with certain characteristics and reacts according to their circumstances. From here, I always say that the painting surprised me, excited me and consequently captivated me.
Omar's painting are attractive in the way he decontextualizes everyday objects. Another feature of his work is the ability it gives us to use the images themselves, to give them an artistic language, as outsiders, or simply allows us to observe them and reuse them in a speculative collage undertaking a recycling of expressive images as a tool independent of the intrinsic quality of the work, perhaps because they seize a narrative itself, act as intimate pieces, trapped in themselves, out of context and space.
Carmen Alarcón
Few people are able to understand the beauty in simplicity and have sensitivity to admire the details that combine to achieve perfection in it.
Omar Ortiz has that uniqueness, accompanied by an extraordinary talent to depict in his realism paintings. In this Mexican oils, light and shadow coexist in harmony, from the beam of the light that ethereally caresses the bare skin of a woman, to those shadows projected in the distance, rebel, as if that makes us accomplices in their splendor.
From the first look, the compositions are sensual; nudes constructed to detail, achieving such perfection in the female figures that it appears in any moment it could sit up and walk towards us resigning perpetuity.
Passionate for movement and textures, utilizes the contrast between them and thus achieves to accentuate them; backgrounds of rough appearance and smooth sublime skins expressed in silence, a conceptual art which incorporates philosophy and classical art.
The love of Renaissance sculpture can be seen in the use of the human body as absolute beauty, serene and melancholic expression that evokes the aesthetics of classical sculptures, where the drama and movement is an important part of the composition. In his work "The Creation of Eve", the flagship in my opinion, the artist reproduces a detail from Michelangelo's famous painting "The Creation of Adam" the iconic divine arm in the background, with a contrast of antique tone, thus achieving a gentle allusion to this masterpiece.
"Perfection is no small thing, but is made of small things"
- Michelangelo Buonarroti.
The love of painting is a constant cycle of inspiration that tends to grow at a very intimate level and installed in our memory, serene, virtuous and divine ... like the art of Omar Ortiz.
Eva N. Pedraza Arriaga
Omar Ortiz is a "seeker of beauty", he captures, and synthesizes it with his amazing technique and returns it to us for our senses to enjoy.
His seemingly classic style, becomes unusually modern with different resources: includes contemporary elements such as a pair of jeans, a logo or traces of swimwear on a slightly tanned skin. He converts the topics of "artist's studio" in to masterpieces in themselves.
Minimalism is a constant in his work. In large canvases he imprints images lacking any superfluous element on plain backgrounds, creating stark contrasts in color or texture. He wants to direct us to the essence of things, forcing us to reflect on its nature.
They are works of astonishing luminosity, which shows the clash of light against materials or on human skin, making the soul behind it nearly transparent. Frequently chooses subjects that cause a great visual impact, sometimes between textures, others between strongly contrasting colors and others between the symbology of objects. He uses some classical or religious themes, as well as bullfighting or the female nude to show that intrinsic beauty of things, like the folds of fabric, causing us to concentrate on them to force us to grasp its truth. Sometimes the theme is the back side of canvases, and then also helps us to reflect on aspects of contemporary art.
The emotional distance between the viewer and the image, the absorption of human figures, the intimacy with which it seems to want to isolate, is tricky: kilometers alienates us then we approaches with the speed of light with a title, a mirage or a duality, a play on words or a visual game.
His painting technique is more than photographic, is cellular. And arranged with his mastery of drawing offers us snippets of contemporary life led to the study of the painter, as a scientist takes his laboratory samples: first the cleans off contamination, and then to isolate them, subject them to thorough analysis, then the contrast with most suitable reagents, and study the result will take him to discover its substance and nature. When he's very sure of his discovery, he exposes it and shares it with the other members of his community.
Marta Moro Rodríguez
To meet Omar Ortiz is to enter a world of perfection, movement and sensuality, the perfect combination of realism and fantasy.
But who is Omar?, Where does he develops his talent? Born in Guadalajara, Jalisco in 1977, from a child awakens his interest in drawing and illustration. His father, visionary of this talent, encouraged him to study graphic design communication, and learn to work with different techniques in drawing: pastel, charcoal, watercolor and acrylic. After graduation he decided to devote to painting.
Influenced by Claudio Bravo and Istvan Sandorfi, Omar enters the hyperrealism with total and absolute freedom, it is they who he devotes his first strokes to, later arrive Javier Arizabalo and Jose Luis Corella Spanish painters with whom he has a close friendship.
Hyperrealism is where he unloads all his inspiration, but he does not make it simple, he combines it with minimalism whites predominate, fabrics and the human figure, that magical combination has been the hallmark of his work.
Omar can differentiate between the subtle and the extreme, the strength of his painting is always accompanied by the finesse of the features and the perfection of his technique.
When Omar Ortiz paints, he uses the human figure as the main element, which is not only natural but captivating. The front view of his characters, equipped with special features, sensual and harmonic surprise us and therefore we love.
Verónica Green
